1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to methods and apparatuses for automatic activation of bus termination on a Fast Ethernet repeater stack. More specifically, the invention relates to methods and apparatuses for automatically determining which repeaters from of a group of repeaters in a Fast Ethernet repeater stack happen to be plugged into the end of the stack. A top repeater and a bottom repeater are identified and a termination circuit is activated and connected to the bus for each of those repeaters so that the bus is terminated at the repeaters at the ends of the stack. This prevents reflections of signals on the bus that would otherwise occur and degrade the performance of the bus. Because the top and bottom Fast Ethernet repeaters are determined automatically, it is not necessary for a system administrator to configure the stack or to connect a termination plug to the top and bottom machines.
2. Description of the Related Art
The growth of local-area networks (LANs) has been driven by the introduction of Ethernet Technology as well as the availability of powerful, affordable personal computers and workstations. As a result, applications that once were possible only on mainframe computers are now running on LANs. Network speed and availability are critical requirements. However, existing applications and a new generation of multimedia, groupware, imaging, and database products can tax a network running at Ethernet's traditional speed of 10 megabits per second (Mbps). Moreover, with more applications requiring faster LAN speeds for acceptable performance, network managers increasingly find that high-performance computation platforms and mission-critical applications can overwhelm a 10 Mbps network. Network managers therefore are increasingly implementing high-speed LAN technology.